A Hand of Spades

Chapter 15. Marital Problems

"She's what?"

No one answers. Cori clutches the towel to her body, dripping water onto the hardwood floor. Cash still has his arm braced on Tex's chest. They stare daggers at each other, caught in a standoff.

I shake off the shock and step between them. "Tex"-

"Stay out of this, Jane." The cowboy sneers.

"No fucking way." All eyes snap to me. "You made this my problem when you barged in here and started shouting. Go outside, take twenty minutes, and cool off. Come back in when you've calmed down."

"She'll take off"-

"No, she won't. If she tries I'll stop her." I whip my head to fix Cori with as fierce a look as I can manage with a throbbing hangover. "I don't want to, but I will stop you if I have to."

She scoffs, but she doesn't make an immediate run for it in her towel, so I take it as a win.

Tex storms back outside, Cash follows.

"Finish your shower." I tell Cori. "I'll leave some clean clothes out for you in that back room."

Wordlessly, she heads back into the bathroom. I hear the water kick on again and watch the door for a few beats before going into my room to change into sweatpants and lay out a ratty t-shirt and shorts for Cori. They'll no doubt be huge on her tiny frame, but it's all I've got. 

I glance out the window and watch Cash and Tex. Tex is pacing, gesturing wildly with his hands. Cash just stands there with his arms folded. Every once in a while, he nods his agreement, but Tex hardly seems to take notice.

When Cori eventually joins me on the couch, she gestures to the old shirt I left for her with mild disgust. "Do all your clothes have holes in them?"

"Pretty much."

That shuts her up, apart from a murmured, "thanks".

"So," I try to think of ways to delicately bring up the topic, but Cori is as indelicate as they come, "he's your husband?"

"Christ." She sighs, her head falling against the back of the couch. She blinks a few times and I think I spot tears swimming in her dark irises, but they're gone when she faces me again. "I was young when I was running with the Spades. Marshall - Tex - really took me under his wing. I don't know why I'm telling you this."

I shrug. "I asked. Keep going."

"I didn't have anyone else. I'd bounced through enough foster homes to know I couldn't rely on anyone but me. We only got married so I didn't have to go back into the system. I was seventeen and he'd just turned twenty-one." She gestures wildly, hands grasping to make sense of her own past. "I didn't know what I was doing."

"Why did you leave? Did he hurt you?"

"No, never. He didn't touch me. He wouldn't even - he didn't see me like that. He just did me a favor." She scoffs. "I panicked. I turned eighteen and I ran."

"How long ago was that?"

"Five years."

She's even younger than I am. I had no idea. I would have ballparked her age at twenty-eight from attitude alone. 

"That's why I freaked when I saw them." 

Something still isn't adding up. If they married just to keep her out of the system, why does Tex seem so hurt that she left?

"Did you love him?"

She glares at me, and I understand enough about Cori to know that it means yes. I glance at the simple band on her left ring ringer. "I was a kid. What the hell did I know?"